Claudia Leon
Claudia Leon, an Imperial woman of 30, was formerly one of the most infamous pirate captains of her time and perhaps even in Tamriel's history. She was known as "the Demoness of the Abecean" for her exploits and ferocity in battle. However, recent event have left her ship-less and down on her luck, leading her to join the crew of Count Lysander Porphyry Spiros IV as First Mate. Appearance Claudia is an attractive woman, if a non-traditional one. She has a strong face, with a wide, defined jawline and striking cheekbones. Her hair, naturally brown, has turned a sandy shade of blonde over her years of sailing. Claudia has amber eyes, and while they’re certainly beautiful, they are frequently described as unsettling – they’re hungry eyes, always searching for something more, and have a piercing quality to them. Her body is lean, long, and hard, tall and tightly muscled: the body of a swordswoman. Her skin is tan not only from her Imperial heritage, but also from the years spent on the Abecean. Several tattoos decorate her body, souvenirs of the 15 years she’s spent on the high seas. A large sea dragon that snakes around her left arm and onto her shoulder blade is the largest of these tattoos. She also has a small crown on the base of her neck, a compass on her right forearm, an anchor with two slaughterfish wrapped around it on her lower back'', and on her right shoulder a galleon with the phrase “RIP ''The Lusty Lady”. Skills Claudia is a capable leader, a skilled sailor, and an even more talented swordswoman. Possessions Prior to the loss of The Lusty Lady, ''Claudia had an extensive collection of expensive and ostentatious clothing, as many pirates do. She also enjoyed wearing a mask shaped like a dremora when taking ships, a habit that partially inspired her nickname. However, she lost the vast majority of those clothing when ''The Lady ''sunk, and the rest when the Imperial City burned. As of this particular moment in time, Claudia has very few possessions beyond the clothes on her body and the sword on her hip. She lost most of her belongings – including the vast majority of the treasure she had and most of her clothing – when her ship, ''The Lusty Lady, sunk a few months back, and the rest when she escaped the sacking of the Imperial City. For the moment, she wears a simple but finely made navy cotton shirt with a wide collar and mid-length, puffy sleeves – it’s dirtied and ripped by the hectic events of the past few days. The sleeves are tucked into a pair of well-worn leather bracers, and covered slightly by a tight leather jerkin, which is similarly worn. She wears a pair of tight breeches with white and dark blue stripes, and a pair of knee high leather boots. Claudia had a fine hooded jacket that she prized, but it was irreparably damaged while escaping the City. Her belt is simple leather, and has a small pouch that contains the few valuables she now has, some gold and a few pieces of jewelry. As far as weaponry, Claudia relies on a long, ornate cutlass with a slightly curved, serrated blade. The blade is clearly old, but has held up well thanks to fine construction and an enchantment – though the nature of said enchantment is unknown to Claudia, despite her efforts to discover it. She got the sword from an encounter with a band of ghostly pirates roughly eight years ago, and has used it as her primary weapon ever since. She claims she defeated the ghost of the legendary Cyrus in order to claim the sword, but whether that’s the truth or an embellishment on an already exciting tale is unknown. Claudia keeps the blade on a leather strap slung over her shoulder. She also normally carries a dagger on her hip, but she lost that in the chaos. Personality A pirate through and through, Claudia’s profession bleeds into her personality as much as her personality informs her profession. Self-centered by nature, Claudia is a glory hound, a hot head, a rebel, and a borderline narcissist. However, those traits are also balanced out by her charisma, affability, and likability. Though she was a pirate for many years, she was never known as a particularly brutal one. Her skill in battle was well-known, of course, and she was more than willing to kill her captives if need be, but she was never much for torture. Strengths Claudia has a snarky, sarcastic sense of humor, and gets along well with most people as long as they understand who she is and which parts of herself she’ll never compromise. She laughs easily and flirts casually, which helps disguise her willingness to toss aside anyone who ceases to be useful to her. Claudia is resourceful and clever, though not always as much as she thinks she is. Flaws Claudia has an inflated opinion of her own cleverness, and often acts without fully thinking things through. She uses sex and alcohol as a solution to (and/or an escape from) her problems far too often for it to be entirely healthy, despite her arguments otherwise. She also hates sea shanties, which is really unfortunate for someone in her line of work. History Little is known of the woman who would eventually terrorize the Abecean Sea and earn the nickname “the Demoness of the Abecean” before she joined the crew of a Captain Jak Silver as a youth … she certainly doesn’t talk about the time before then, at least with any seriousness. The stories she does tell are often contradictory, such as saying she grew up on a farm outside of Anvil, or as the daughter of a whore in Sentinel. The most she gives is that nobody cared about her until she picked up a sword. Of course, once she did pick up that sword, she became infamous. She spent most of her younger years under Captain Silver, who had all but adopted her, learning how to sail a ship and mastering the craft of sword fighting with ease. By the time she was 19, she was one of the most influential members of Silver’s crew, and by 20 she had led a mutiny to take the ship – The Chalice – ''as her own, dissatisfied with the meager earnings Silver was leading them to. She left her former parental figure on a small island just southwest of Anvil and set about making her own legend. She did, immediately striking out a one of the most powerful pirates in the area at the time, Drevas Lloreyn, “The Slaughterfish.” Despite the Slaughterfish’s supposedly more powerful ship and more numerous crew, Claudia led a daring attack, and managed to not only slay him in single combat, but take his ship as her own. She renamed the sloop ''The Slaughteredfish ''as a jest, and used it to start a near ten-year reign over Tamriel’s western sea. She earned her reputation by taking ships personally, often killing numerous individuals herself when ships resisted. Around this time she encountered Count Lysander Spiros for the first time when she helped him on an adventure to defeat a group of ghostly pirates. The pair’s sexual relationship also started then. Several years later, Claudia helped capture a Redguard Royal Man of War, the biggest and most valuable prize of her career, with the help of three other pirate captains. Though the foursome vowed to use to ship to carve out a free city for free men and women, Claudia instead decided to keep the ship for herself and killed the other three. She named the Man of War ''The Lusty Lady (once again, as a jest), and made it her flagship, retiring the Slaughteredfish. Unfortunately for her, Claudia and her crew were unable to maintain the Redguard technology for longer than a year or find anyone willing to risk the Redguard death squads in order to teach them, and found themselves relentlessly pursued by the Redguard navy (she still has a price on her head in Hammerfell large enough to buy a small kingdom) – Claudia had managed to find a prize literally too valuable to take advantage of. Suffice it to say, the life of The Lusty Lady was short, and the vessel was eventually sunk in an intense fight with the Redguards along with most of its crew. Claudia was one of the few survivors. She eventually made her way to the Imperial City afterwards, where she’s been over the past several months, drinking her days (and remaining fortunes) away and avoiding the plethora of enemies she made in her career. Category:Imperial Category:Characters Category:Mananauts Category:Spiros and the Mananauts